Hank's first Meazzi

[roger bayliss]

If it happens I'd like a day out with you !!!

[dave robinson]

Add the Abbey Road studio and the Abbey Road reverb chamber with Malcolm Addey doing the engineering and you'd be in with a small chance - The Toerag studio doesn't have the rest of the compression and limiting tools that were used, so I believe it would be money wasted.

[roger bayliss]

From checking some info on the web ToeRag have an original Abbey Road desk installed and Neumann mics and tape recorders like those used at AR during 60's. They have some form of echo chamber it says but no other info of what that is. Liam Watson seems to imply he does not use Fairchild compressors or Pultech EQ's. It is however one of the few available analogue studios available with some of the right gear and I think it would be interesting if someone had a go and see how it pans out. I am quite sure it wilkl not be an exact replica of the Shads early recordings but I for one am curious if the use of an old analogue studio similar to Abbey Rd could work and as they say if you never try you will never know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_Rag_Studios#Facilities

[roger bayliss]

Heres the studios site with gear pages to assist... look for the Rapiers on last link page !

http://www.toeragstudios.co.uk/introduction.swf

[dave robinson]

Hi Roger, I have been aware all of that stuff for some time , which is why I consider it a waste of time and money without ALL of the necessary components. I still have access to my own old mixing desks, Revox/Studer/Tascam tape decks etc and I have no desire to dig those out simply beacuse it won't prove anything.

The Abbey Road reverb was a BIG factor and we won't be able to recreate that because it was a big room in the cellar with a microphone at one end and a speaker at the other, with solid obsticles in between to make reflections. Lliam Watson who runs the studio tends to dismiss the Fairchild compressors and Pultech EQ'a as snobbery, but they were part of it and need to be there if you start an exercise such as you are suggesting. You can't do it with only half the kit.

I was at Roberto Pistolisi's studio where he had the Meazzi Echomatic, Binsons, 1960 Vox Ac15, 1959 Fender Tremolux, Neumann microphones - you name it, he had it - and still the sound was nowhere near . . . . . . I still have the recordings we did to confirm this.

Because of what I have said here,I firmly believe it would be good money wasted to go into that studio, it is however up to whoever has the will to try it. I also believe that the Meazzi would make the AC15 or AC30/4 get even closer and look forward to finding out when Alan's Echomatic is fully restored and we check it out.

[roger bayliss]

Noted Dave I am sure you have used some of the gear but certainly not an original Abbey Rd desk. I have said before that it is not just the ef86 channel and the Meazzi though because I have heard some recordings done by people with Meazzis and the sound is right but not completely right. This means that it has got to be the recording gear as used back then that further colours the sound and enriches the content. I am not an expert on this but I do know what I hear and the amp and echo is only part of it. I also wonder how many tunes were subjected to the reverb chamber anyway some where but not all of them and I do not see how reverb alone can colour the guitar tone .. which to me is quite fat and full sounding.. listen to At Abbey Road no overdubs so its a good choice and I do not hear that sound coming out of just the guitar , ef86, Meazzi combination. I proposed this because like you I am facinated by this sound debate and how it was acheived and I suspect many more of us too. I only contend that it would be an interesting experiment if the costs were not that great for recording say one selected tune. I am not saying it will answer all the That Sound questions but may take us a little closer in our understanding of it all.

IMHO

[dave robinson]

Good luck.

[JimN]

... they clearly had it for ... Willie and The Hand Jive... I can't find any evidence of echoes on Living Doll (other than reverb) or Travelling Light or probably Voice in the Wilderness and songs before that, so I would place it at sometime between Jan 1960 and March 1960. Whether the tunes before that had "That Sound" I'll leave for debate!

Willie And The Hand Jive was recorded in November 1959, quite a while before it was released (1960). If the record features echo (rather than reverb), that puts the Meazzi acquisition some way back from early 1960. Additionally, that recording is, in my opinion, unlikely to feature a Vox amplifier for Hank's guitar, since the tremolo effect is the sort available on Selmer and Fender amps, but not on Voxes. The "Vibravox / Trem" effects on the AC range are quite different in character.

JN

[Didier]

Willie And The Hand Jive was recorded in November 1959, quite a while before it was released (1960). If the record features echo (rather than reverb), that puts the Meazzi acquisition some way back from early 1960. Additionally, that recording is, in my opinion, unlikely to feature a Vox amplifier for Hank's guitar, since the tremolo effect is the sort available on Selmer and Fender amps, but not on Voxes. The "Vibravox / Trem" effects on the AC range are quite different in character.

I doubt there was any echo on " Willie and the hand jive", only a strong tremolo effect and some reverb.
I expected Hank to play this tune the same way during the current tour, unfortunatly it's not the case !

Didier

[MeBHank]

I also believe that the Meazzi would make the AC15 or AC30/4 get even closer and look forward to finding out when Alan's Echomatic is fully restored and we check it out.

You don't need a drum echo to prove that, though, Dave. There is little or no difference between the sound of a Meazzi drum machine and a Meazzi tape unit (such as those Phil and I own). Remember, Dick Denney said the oxide wore off very quickly on on Hank's Model 2, meaning that he had to attach a 1/4" tape around the edge of the drum. The mechanics of an echo machine have no bearing whatsoever on the sound. I hear in my echo the same magic that I hear on the records. You can't beat hearing it "in the flesh" - you must hear it sometime.

Regarding recording with the desks that were used in Abbey Road, it is possible that the Shadowers will need to record at some point, so yes, common sense tells me it would be good to kill two birds with one stone and try and replicate the sound of the records at the same time, using as much vintage gear as possible (Meazzi Echomatic, Vox AC15, original microphones, REDD desk). If the results aren't as close as we'd like we will still have recordings at the end of the project, and we'll have a had a fascinating day out too!

J